The best examples of sculpture used purely for setting are found in _The Ring and the Book_. Containing only its few references to pieces of sculpture in Florence and Rome, it is the one of the list of poems in which this art is least prominent. It presents no picture of a period, no discussion of an attitude toward art, no poetical background of the times aided by art references. Each instance tells us that at such-and-such a place in Rome, in sight of the statue named, a certain event occurred. “Toward Baccio’s Marble” (Part I, l. 44) is used to help locate the Florentine book-stall where Browning found the ‘old yellow book’ that became the basis of the poem. Part I, l. 889, quotes an example of the current gossip in Rome, as taking place “i’ the market-place O’ the Barberini by the Capucins; Where the old Triton ... Puffs up steel sleet.” This instance serves as setting, and further, in a continuation of the description--“out o’ the way O’ the motley merchandising multitude”--contrasts the quiet, regular play of the fountain to the turmoil of the characters. Part VI refers to Pasquin’s statue in a double comparison which emphasizes Pompilia’s innocence in contrast to the bestiality of the squibs that were formerly posted on the statue. In Part XI Guido says his first sight of an instrument for beheading was ‘At the Mouth-of-Truth o’ the river-side you know, Retiring out of noisy crowded Rome’--a reference which serves as a definite means of location. Yet all instances from _The Ring and the Book_ prove little concerning Browning’s interest in art, or his specialized attention to sculpture. The fact that pieces of statuary serve a man as landmarks in Florence or Rome implies little beyond an effort at clearness in location. _The Ring and the Book_, then, in sculpture, is interesting rather for absence than for presence of such references. In fact sculpture is not prominent in the Italian art references of Browning. Not only is it a lesser art quantitatively in Browning’s poetry, but it seems to be placed on a distinctly lower plane. Reasons for these facts, are, in part, the predominance of the other arts over sculpture in Italy, and the particular quality of sculpture as an art which makes it tend toward the expression of physical beauty instead of the soul. Though Browning himself did some work in modeling,[172] he used very few technical terms connected with that art. Since he never put a sculptor speaker on the stage of his poet-world, one does not expect to hear the language of that art spoken. The Duke and the Bishop, it is true, express considerable interest in art, though it is rather in the dilettante spirit than that of serious criticism. “Caryatides,” used in _Sordello_, and “caritellas,” evidently used for cartellas[173] seem to be almost the only instances of technical--or semi-technical--terms connected with sculpture.